Ask Gerard Laviec about his biggest achievement in six years as
president of CFM International, and he will reply: "As soon
as I took over, engine sales soared from 300 to more than 1,000
a year." But he is quick to add, "I shouldn't really say
that because before then I was in CFM sales!"
Joking aside, Laviec had a tiger by the tail as the market for narrowbody
airliners boomed. And now he is leaving at the top, his extended
term of duty over. Laviec plans to retire to his home and family
in Brittany, neither of which he has seen for six years, he only
half-jokes.
His successor will be named later this week here.
During Laviec's tenure the CFM56 became the best selling commercial
turbofan of all time as the exclusive powerplant on the Boeing 737
and current Airbus A340. It's also been chosen by half of the customers
for the Airbus A320 family. The number of engines in service now
surpasses that of the Pratt & Whitney JT8D, giving CFMI partners
GE Aircraft Engines and Snecma of France a tremendous installed
base on which to build further business.
Orders for the CFM56 hit 1,184 last year, and there are now 11,300
in service. Laviec is perhaps the only man ever to deliver not one,
but two 10,000th engines, presenting one to Airbus and one to Boeing
so as to cause offence to neither.
"Of course this fantastic success is due to great teamwork
and having a great product at the right time," Laviec says.
"And I use the word 'fantastic' as it is the one that best
reflects this period. I couldn't have been president of CFM at a
better time."
Indeed, no one was more constantly surprised at the strength of
the market than Laviec, whose annual forecasts-at least in public-always
proved too low.
"I thought we could not continue such a level of sales for
such a long time, as every forecaster said it should go down. Yet
it didn't!" he told Show News. "I still think this year
it should go down, as the market isn't at all what it was in the
last five years. So I have set a figure of 700, which is still quite
good as we have a backlog of more than 3,000 engines, or three years
of production."
But, as he pointed out, just one large order from one airline can
change the face of the market.
He sees the most exciting event of the last six years as the launch
of the Boeing 737NG, the 1,000th of which will be delivered this
year. Another 1,700 are on order-and every one flies with two CFM56s.
On the technical side Laviec oversaw the TECH56 program that was
launched to provide a next-generation engine should the competitive
need arise. He doesn't believe it will-instead, technologies developed
for TECH56 will be incorporated or backfitted into the CFM56 fleet
to further improve its performance.
"Already CFM has set the pace in terms of reliability,"
Laviec says. One engine, a CFM56-3 on a Malev 737-400 leased from
Hapag-Lloyd, now has 35,000 hours on-wing. "The CFM565A
is on track to be even better for average life on-wing (currently
17-18,000 hours average for first run compared to 16,000 hours for
the 3), so the 5BP should be as good, and the 7 even
better," he says.
Laviec's crowning achievement was the award of the French National
Order of Merit, presented to him this year by the French ambassador
to the U.S. in recognition of his efforts in promoting French-U.S.
trade cooperation. Among them was his leading role in launching
the French American trade council in Cincinnati, which next year
is expected to become a fully-fledged chamber of commerce.
By John Morris
PUBLICATIONS
